text: Briefly, SAGE experiments proceed as follows:
  # The mRNA of an input sample (e.g. a tumour) is isolated and a reverse transcriptase and biotinylated primers are used to synthesize cDNA from mRNA.  
  # The cDNA is bound to Streptavidin beads via interaction with the biotin attached to the primers, and is then cleaved using a restriction endonuclease called an anchoring enzyme (AE). The location of the cleavage site and thus the length of the remaining cDNA bound to the bead will vary for each individual cDNA (mRNA).
  # The cleaved cDNA downstream from the cleavage site is then discarded, and the remaining immobile cDNA fragments upstream from cleavage sites are divided in half and exposed to one of two adaptor oligonucleotides (A or B) containing several components in the following order upstream from the attachment site: 1) Sticky ends with the AE cut site to allow for attachment to cleaved cDNA; 2) A recognition site for a restriction endonuclease known as the tagging enzyme (TE), which cuts about 15 nucleotides downstream of its recognition site (within the original cDNA/mRNA sequence); 3) A short primer sequence unique to either adaptor A or B, which will later be used for further amplification via PCR.
  # After adaptor ligation, cDNA are cleaved using TE to remove them from the beads, leaving only a short "tag" of about 11 nucleotides of original cDNA (15 nucleotides minus the 4 corresponding to the AE recognition site).
  # The cleaved cDNA tags are then repaired with DNA polymerase to produce blunt end cDNA fragments.
  # These cDNA tag fragments (with adaptor primers and AE and TE recognition sites attached) are ligated, sandwiching the two tag sequences together, and flanking adaptors A and B at either end.  These new constructs, called ditags, are then PCR amplified using anchor A and B specific primers. 
  # The ditags are then cleaved using the original AE, and allowed to link together with other ditags, which will be ligated to create a cDNA concatemer with each ditag being separated by the AE recognition site.
  # These concatemers are then transformed into bacteria for amplification through bacterial replication.
  # The cDNA concatemers can then be isolated and sequenced using modern high-throughput DNA sequencers, and these sequences can be analysed with computer programs which quantify the recurrence of individual tags.